Babbling Inanities of Americanism

by Thomas A. Droleskey

The strength -- the secret of our strength, the miracle of America, is that our greatness lies not in our government, but in the spirit and determination of our people. (Applause.) When the Federal Convention met in Philadelphia in 1787, our nation was bound by the Articles of Confederation, which began with the words, "We the undersigned delegates." When Gouverneur Morris was asked to draft a preamble to our new Constitution, he offered an important revision and opened with words that changed the course of our nation and the history of the world: "We the people."

By trusting the people, our Founders wagered that a great and noble nation could be built on the liberty that resides in the hearts of all men and women. By trusting the people, succeeding generations transformed our fragile young democracy into the most powerful nation on Earth and a beacon of hope for millions. And so long as we continue to trust the people, our nation will prosper, our liberty will be secure, and the state of our Union will remain strong. (Applause.)

So tonight, with confidence in freedom's power, and trust in the people, let us set forth to do their business. God bless America.(President George Walker Bush, State of the Union Address, Monday, January 28, 2008.)

This is our moment. This is our message - the same message we had when we were up, and when we were down. The same message that we will carry all the way to the convention. And in seven months time - right here in Denver - we can realize this promise; we can claim this legacy; we can choose new leadership for America. Because there is nothing we cannot do if the American people decide it is time.(Barack Obama, January 30, 2008,Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: The Past Versus the Future)

Do not turn away from these great struggles before us. Do not give up on the causes that we have fought for. Do not walk away from what's possible, because it's time for all of us, all of us together, to make the two Americas one. (John Edwards, January 30, 2008)

And that's about all I have to say tonight. Except for one thing. The past few days when I've been at that window upstairs, I've thought a bit of the "shining city upon a hill." The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. What he imagined was important because he was an early Pilgrim, an early freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we'd call a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free.

I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it and see it still.

And how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was eight years ago. But more than that; after 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home.

We've done our part. And as I walk off into the city streets, a final word to the men and women of the Reagan revolution, the men and women across America who for eight years did the work that brought America back. My friends: We did it. We weren't just marking time. We made a difference. We made the city stronger. We made the city freer, and we left her in good hands. All in all, not bad, not bad at all. (Ronald Reagan, Farewell Address, January 11, 1989,
Farewell Address.)

Here we have quite a collection of some of the more recent examples of the babbling inanities of Americanism. An entire collection of these inanities would take over twenty volumes of a thousand pages each, I am sure. Americanism is a false religion.

Americanism is the exaltation of the spirit of individual human abilities to "build" the "better world" without a complete and humble submission to everything contained in the Deposit of Faith that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity made Man in His Most Blessed Mother's Virginal and Immaculate Womb by the power of the God the Holy Ghost, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, entrusted exclusively to the Catholic Church that He Himself created upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope. It is thus the exaltation of religious indifferentism (the belief that it doesn't matter what religion one belongs to, if any religion at all, as long as one is a "good" person) over the necessity of belief in the one and only true Faith, Catholicism.

Have you ever seen the following saying on the back of a tractor-trailer truck? "Start your week right: Attend the Church of your choice." This is an expression of pure, unadulterated Americanism, the likes of which have been condemned by pope after pope prior to 1958 in no certain terms, no ambiguity, no nuance, no concessions to any false concept known as the "new evangelization," no disparagement of proselytism, no mention of engaging in "dialogue" with unbelievers, no efforts to discourage efforts to convert Protestants:

Now We consider another abundant source of the evils with which the Church is afflicted at present: indifferentism. This perverse opinion is spread on all sides by the fraud of the wicked who claim that it is possible to obtain the eternal salvation of the soul by the profession of any kind of religion, as long as morality is maintained. Surely, in so clear a matter, you will drive this deadly error far from the people committed to your care. With the admonition of the apostle that "there is one God, one faith, one baptism" may those fear who contrive the notion that the safe harbor of salvation is open to persons of any religion whatever. They should consider the testimony of Christ Himself that "those who are not with Christ are against Him," and that they disperse unhappily who do not gather with Him. Therefore "without a doubt, they will perish forever, unless they hold the Catholic faith whole and inviolate." Let them hear Jerome who, while the Church was torn into three parts by schism, tells us that whenever someone tried to persuade him to join his group he always exclaimed: "He who is for the See of Peter is for me." A schismatic flatters himself falsely if he asserts that he, too, has been washed in the waters of regeneration. Indeed Augustine would reply to such a man: "The branch has the same form when it has been cut off from the vine; but of what profit for it is the form, if it does not live from the root?" (Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832.)

To hold, therefore, that there is no difference in matters of religion between forms that are unlike each other, and even contrary to each other, most clearly leads in the end to the rejection of all religion in both theory and practice. And this is the same thing as atheism, however it may differ from it in name. Men who really believe in the existence of God must, in order to be consistent with themselves and to avoid absurd conclusions, understand that differing modes of divine worship involving dissimilarity and conflict even on most important points cannot all be equally probable, equally good, and equally acceptable to God. (Pope Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885.)

Americanism is the exaltation of the ability of human beings to be virtuous on their own without belief in, access to or cooperation with the Sanctifying Graces that were won by the shedding of every single drop of the Most Precious Blood of the Divine Redeemer, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and that flow into human hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, the Mediatrix of All Graces. It is thus the exaltation of the spirit of the heresy of semi-Pelagianism, which asserts that human beings are more or less self-redemptive as they stir up graces within themselves.

Americanism is the exaltation of the measure of personal and national greatness on the basis of naturalistic standards over the necessity of referring all things at all times to the final end of man, the possession of the glory of the Beatific Vision of God: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost for all eternity. It is thus the exaltation of the Judeo-Masonic spirit of "brotherhood" over the Catholic teaching of the Communion of the Saints.

Americanism is the exaltation of the spirit of egalitarianism over the truth of the hierarchy that exists in the Order of Creation and in the Order of Grace, that is, the Order of Redemption, making it necessary for there to a separation of Church and State in order that "free men" can choose for themselves how to live. Americanism is, all of its invocations of a generic "God" notwithstanding, the exaltation of the deification of man over man's due submission to God and the authority of His true Church in all that pertains to the good of souls and to matters of fundamental justice in according with the binding precepts of His Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law.

Americanism is the exaltation of the spirit of "civil" and "religious" liberty" over the true sense of liberty that comes only from the Catholic Faith. That is, Americanism is the exaltation of human independence over a due submission to and reliance upon the magisterial authority of the Catholic Church that sees in the Cross the very means by which we are truly free, that is, free from an enslavement to the power of sin and eternal death.

Americanism is the exaltation of individualism over the due submission that we must render in all humility to Christ the King as He has revealed Himself to us exclusively through the Catholic Church. Americanism thus feeds into Protestant Pentecostalism and the whole ethos of the "Catholic Charismatic Renewal" as it eschews a complete submission of one's mind and will to the binding teaching of Holy Mother Church's magisterium in favor of an "individual relationship" with God the Holy Ghost whereby people think that they have a "private pipeline" to God and can decide for themselves what part of the consistent teaching of the Catholic Church they will and will not follow.

Pope Leo XIII noted this rejection of the exterior guidance of the Catholic Church in his Apostolical Letter on Americanism:

Coming now to speak of the conclusions which have been deduced from the above opinions, and for them, we readily believe there was no thought of wrong or guile, yet the things themselves certainly merit some degree of suspicion. First, all external guidance is set aside for those souls who are striving after Christian perfection as being superfluous or indeed, not useful in any sense -the contention being that the Holy Spirit pours richer and more abundant graces than formerly upon the souls of the faithful, so that without human intervention He teaches and guides them by some hidden instinct of His own. Yet it is the sign of no small over-confidence to desire to measure and determine the mode of the Divine communication to mankind, since it wholly depends upon His own good pleasure, and He is a most generous dispenser 'of his own gifts. "The Spirit breatheth whereso He listeth." -- John iii, 8.

"And to each one of us grace is given according to the measure of the giving of Christ." -- Eph. iv, 7.

And shall any one who recalls the history of the apostles, the faith of the nascent church, the trials and deaths of the martyrs- and, above all, those olden times, so fruitful in saints-dare to measure our age with these, or affirm that they received less of the divine outpouring from the Spirit of Holiness? Not to dwell upon this point, there is no one who calls in question the truth that the Holy Spirit does work by a secret descent into the souls of the just and that He stirs them alike by warnings and impulses, since unless this were the case all outward defense and authority would be unavailing. "For if any persuades himself that he can give assent to saving, that is, to gospel truth when proclaimed, without any illumination of the Holy Spirit, who give's unto all sweetness both to assent and to hold, such an one is deceived by a heretical spirit."-From the Second Council of Orange, Canon 7.

Moreover, as experience shows, these monitions and impulses of the Holy Spirit are for the most part felt through the medium of the aid and light of an external teaching authority. To quote St. Augustine. "He (the Holy Spirit) co-operates to the fruit gathered from the good trees, since He externally waters and cultivates them by the outward ministry of men, and yet of Himself bestows the inward increase."-De Gratia Christi, Chapter xix. This, indeed, belongs to the ordinary law of God's loving providence that as He has decreed that men for the most part shall be saved by the ministry also of men, so has He wished that those whom He calls to the higher planes of holiness should be led thereto by men; hence St. Chrysostom declares we are taught of God through the instrumentality of men.-Homily I in Inscrib. Altar. Of this a striking example is given us in the very first days of the Church.

For though Saul, intent upon blood and slaughter, had heard the voice of our Lord Himself and had asked, "What dost Thou wish me to do?" yet he was bidden to enter Damascus and search for Ananias. Acts ix: "Enter the city and it shall be there told to thee what thou must do."

Nor can we leave out of consideration the truth that those who are striving after perfection, since by that fact they walk in no beaten or well-known path, are the most liable to stray, and hence have greater need than others of a teacher and guide. Such guidance has ever obtained in the Church; it has been the universal teaching of those who throughout the ages have been eminent for wisdom and sanctity-and hence to reject it would be to commit one's self to a belief at once rash and dangerous.

A thorough consideration of this point, in the supposition that no exterior guide is granted such souls, will make us see the difficulty of locating or determining the direction and application of that more abundant influx of the Holy Spirit so greatly extolled by innovators To practice virtue there is absolute need of the assistance of the Holy Spirit, yet we find those who are fond of novelty giving an unwarranted importance to the natural virtues, as though they better responded to the customs and necessities of the times and that having these as his outfit man becomes more ready to act and more strenous in action. It is not easy to understand how persons possessed of Christian wisdom
can either prefer natural to supernatural virtues or attribute to them a greater efficacy and fruifulness. Can it be that nature conjoined with grace is weaker than when left to herself? (Pope Leo XIII, Testem Benevolentiae, January 22, 1899.)

Americanism represents the exaltation the mania of "action" divorced from prayer, making false distinctions between "active" and "passive" virtue," leading many Catholics to consider praying Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary, for example, as "doing nothing" to help one's country. Popes Leo XIII and Saint Pius X both discussed this aspect of Americanism:

This overesteem of natural virtue finds a method of expression in assuming to divide all virtues in active and passive, and it is alleged that whereas passive virtues found better place in past times, our age is to be characterized by the active. That such a division and distinction cannot be maintained is patent-for there is not, nor can there be, merely passive virtue. "Virtue," says St. Thomas Aquinas, "designates the perfection of some faculty, but end of such faculty is an act, and an act of virtue is naught else than the good use of free will," acting, that is to say, under the grace of God if the act be one of supernatural virtue.

He alone could wish that some Christian virtues be adapted to certain times and different ones for other times who is unmindful of the apostle's words: "That those whom He foreknew, He predestined to be made conformable to the image of His Son."- Romans viii, 29. Christ is the teacher and the exemplar of all sanctity, and to His standard must all those conform who wish for eternal life. Nor does Christ know any change as the ages pass, "for He is yesterday and to-day and the same forever."-Hebrews xiii, 8. To the men of all ages was the precept given: "Learn of Me, because I am meek and humble of heart."-Matt. xi, 29.

To every age has He been made manifest to us as obedient even unto death; in every age the apostle's dictum has its force: "Those who are Christ's have crucified their flesh with its vices and concupiscences." Would to God that more nowadays practiced these virtues in the degree of the saints of past times, who in humility, obedience and self-restraint were powerful "in word and in deed" -to the great advantage not only of religion, but of the state and the public welfare.

From this disregard of the - angelical virtues, erroneously styled passive, the step was a short one to a contempt of the religious life which has in some degree taken hold of minds. That such a value is generally held by the upholders of new views, we infer from certain statements concerning the vows which religious orders take. They say vows are alien to the spirit of our times, in that they limit the bounds of human liberty; that they are more suitable to weak than ›o strong minds; that so far from making for human perfection and the good of human organization, they are hurtful to both; but that this is as false as possible from the practice and the doctrine of the Church is clear, since she has always given the very highest approval to the religious method of life; nor without good cause, for those who under the divine call have freely embraced that state of life did not content themselves with the observance of precepts, but, going forward to the evangelical counsels, showed themselves ready and valiant soldiers of Christ. Shall we judge this to be a characteristic of weak minds, or shall we say that it is useless or hurtful to a more perfect state of life?

Those who so bind themselves by the vows of religion, far from having suffered a loss of liberty, enjoy that fuller and freer kind, that liberty, namely, by which Christ hath made us free. And this further view of theirs, namely, that the religious life is either entirely useless or of little service to the Church, besides being injurious to the religious orders cannot be the opinion of anyone who has read the annals of the Church. Did not your country, the United States, derive the beginnings both of faith and of culture from the children of these religious families? to one of whom but very lately, a thing greatly to your praise, you have decreed that a statue be publicly erected. And even at the present time wherever the religious families are found, how speedy and yet how fruitful a harvest of good works do they not bring forth! How very many leave home and seek strange lands to impart the truth of the gospel and to widen the bounds of civilization; and this they do with the greatest cheerfulness amid manifold dangers! Out of their number not less, indeed, than from the rest of the clergy, the Christian world finds the preachers of God's word, the directors of conscience, the teachers of youth and the Church itself the examples of all sanctity.

Nor should any difference of praise be made between those who follow the active state of life and those others who, charmed with solitude, give themselves to prayer and bodily mortification. And how much, indeed, of good report these have merited, and do merit, is known surely to all who do not forget that the "continual prayer of the just man" avails to placate and to bring down the blessings of heaven when to such prayers bodily mortification is added.

But if there be those who prefer to form one body without the obligation of the vows let them pursue such a course. It is not new in the Church, nor in any wise censurable. Let them be careful, however, not to set forth such a state above that of religious orders. But rather, since mankind are more disposed at the present time to indulge themselves in pleasures, let those be held in greater esteem "who having left all things have followed Christ." (Pope Leo XIII, Testem Benevolentiae, January 22, 1899.)

It remains for Us now to say a few words about the Modernist as reformer. From all that has preceded, it is abundantly clear how great and how eager is the passion of such men for innovation. In all Catholicism there is absolutely nothing on which it does not fasten. They wish philosophy to be reformed, especially in the ecclesiastical seminaries. They wish the scholastic philosophy to be relegated to the history of philosophy and to be classed among absolute systems, and the young men to be taught modern philosophy which alone is true and suited to the times in which we live. They desire the reform of theology: rational theology is to have modern philosophy for its foundation, and positive theology is to be founded on the history of dogma. As for history, it must be written and taught only according to their methods and modern principles. Dogmas and their evolution, they affirm, are to be harmonized with science and history. In the Catechism no dogmas are to be inserted except those that have been reformed and are within the capacity of the people. Regarding worship, they say, the number of external devotions is to he reduced, and steps must be taken to prevent their further increase, though, indeed, some of the admirers of symbolism are disposed to be more indulgent on this head. They cry out that ecclesiastical government requires to be reformed in all its branches, but especially in its disciplinary and dogmatic departments They insist that both outwardly and inwardly it must be brought into harmony with the modern conscience which now wholly tends towards democracy; a share in ecclesiastical government should therefore be given to the lower ranks of the clergy and even to the laity and authority which is too much concentrated should be decentralized The Roman Congregations and especially the index and the Holy Office, must be likewise modified The ecclesiastical authority must alter its line of conduct in the social and political world; while keeping outside political organizations it must adapt itself to them in order to penetrate them with its spirit. With regard to morals, they adopt the principle of the Americanists, that the active virtues are more important than the passive, and are to be more encouraged in practice. They ask that the clergy should return to their primitive humility and poverty, and that in their ideas and action they should admit the principles of Modernism; and there are some who, gladly listening to the teaching of their Protestant masters, would desire the suppression of the celibacy of the clergy. What is there left in the Church which is not to be reformed by them and according to their principles? (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

Americanism breeds the bubbling inanities that are spoken constantly by the average citizen and by those in public life.

"God bless America." For what? For what? For religious indifferentism? For separation of Church and State? For semi-Pelagianism? For the proliferation of Protestant sects and Judeo-Masonic lodges in formerly Catholic countries? For Calvinistic materialism? For the Judeo-Masonic spirit of naturalism that has robbed, in conjunction with the ethos of conciliarism and of the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo Missae itself, Catholics of any ability to view the events of this passing, mortal vale of tears through the eyes of the true Faith? For indifference in the wake of decriminalized baby-killing, whether by surgical or chemical means, under cover of law? For spreading contraception and the rot of popular culture (indecent fashions, pornography, magazines, books, "music," motion pictures) throughout the world so as to corrupt the morals and endanger the salvation of billions of souls? For what? For what?

"The shining city set on a hill." This blasphemous corruption of the words of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ("You are the light of the world. A city seated on a mountain cannot be hid") taken from the Sermon on the Mount as recounted in the Gospel According to Saint Matthew (5: 14), to the land settled by the Catholic-hating Puritans, including the John Winthrop who was so praised by the late President Ronald Wilson Reagan? God meant to establish the followers and their false, wicked, diabolical theology and approach to materialism as the "beacon" for the rest of the world? John Winthrop as a "freedom man." No man is a freedom man unless he yokes himself to the Cross of the Divine Redeemer as that Cross is lifted high by the Catholic Church, the one and only "shining city that is set on a hill," the one and only beacon to the world.

The myths of what constitutes American national "greatness" and "goodness" were exploded by Orestes Brownson in
National Greatness. Those same myths are repeated by naturalistic politics across the entire spectrum of the false opposites of our Judeo-Masonic system. They have wreaked havoc with the lives of so many Catholics to such an extent that there are people even in traditional Catholic chapels who use profanity to refer to the binding, immutable doctrine of the Church concerning the obligation of the civil state to recognize the true Church as its official religion. Profanity is used to disparage the teaching of the Catholic Church, she who teaches only that which her Divine Founder and Invisible Head has taught her to teach. This profanity is therefore directed against Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ as a false idol, the United States of America, is exalted, as the authentic concept of patriotism, which seeks to will the good of one's nation, which is her Catholicization, is replaced by the sin against the First Commandment that is nationalism.

True, each nation has its own national character. There are natural virtues and traits that redound very favorably to the national character of a given people. The same is true in the United States of America, as Pope Leo XIII pointed out at the beginning of Longiqua Oceani, January 6, 1895. Unless those natural virtues and traits are supernaturalized, however, they must degenerate over the course of time as they are sustained by nothing other than mere human effort and subject to the vicissitudes of emotion and illogic and absurdity and relativism and all of the other false currents of Judeo-Masonic naturalism. Each person and each nation, including the United States of America, needs the true Faith to refine natural virtues and traits and to elevate and to ennoble them in the service of the advancement of a truly just society, one in which everything is undertaken with a view to advancing man's Last End.

Monsignor Henri Delassus's Americanism and the Anti-Christian Conspiracy, available from Catholic Action Resource Center, is a masterful exposition of the pernicious influence of the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic notions that flow into Americanism, which served as such an important contributing factor to the whole ethos of conciliarism itself, on Catholics in the United States of America and around the world. Monsignor Delassus's work, which provides insights into Pope Leo XIII's Apostolical Letter, Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae, to the longtime Americanist Archbishop of Baltimore, James Cardinal Gibbons, January 22, 1899, and connects Americanism to the worldwide effort on the part of Talmudic Judaism to make war upon the Catholic Faith.

As Monsignor Delassus demonstrated, the spirit of Father Isaac Thomas Hecker and other Americanists fit very well into the goals of Talmudic Judaism to undermine the Faith of individual Catholics so that their first loyalties would be to the false concepts of Modernity, including Americanism, and then to their Church, which, if all went according to the plan, would itself one day "adopt" the false concepts of Modernity and make its "peace" with the revolutions of 1776 and 1789:

How so? Fr. Hecker tells us: "A call is made to men who possess this new synthesis of truth who are able to solve the problems of eliminating antagonisms, of being reconciled with the need of our era; of men who will take hold of all the aspirations of modern genius effected by science, of social activity, of politics, of spirituality (accordingly, spirituality itself would be called upon to defend the Church and to procure her universal triumph), of religion, and of the transformation of everything by means of the defense and universal triumph for the Church" (The Life of Fr. Hecker.)

Those who are not made aware of the world's current direction by the information that they derive from the newspaper--and this is the vast majority--will undoubtedly be surprised, in speaking to them of "Americanism" and of an "American Catholicism," we begin by calling their attention to the "Universal Israelite Alliance," entering through there upon a question, the Jewish Question, that presently fascinates the world and that is studied under every point of view, but which does not take into account, appears to be removed from, American Catholicism. This is nevertheless not imaginary on our part. The Universal Israelite Alliance is the center, the home, the bond of the antichristian conspiracy, by which Americanism seems to us to provide a support that it is not aware of which would not be given if it were understood and upon which this book is determined to direct its attention ...

One of the most malicious men of this [19th] century, the Jew [Jules Isaac] Cremieux, who was made grand Master of the French Grand Orient, who profited by the Revolution of 1848 [in France] by being raised to the Ministry of Justice, and by the disasters of 1870 which gave French citizenship to all the Jews of Algeria, founded in 1860 a cosmopolitan society which he endowed with the name of Universal Israelite Alliance. This association is not, as its name would have one believe, one of international Jewry, a bond to better facilitate links between Jews scattered around the surface of the globe; its aims bear upon something much more higher. It is an association open to all men without distinction of nationality nor of religion, under the high direction of Israel.

In order to be convinced of this, it is sufficient to open the publication that represents it, The Israelite Archives. "The Universal Israelite Alliance," it says there (xxx, pp. 514-515, for the year 1861), "must enter into all religions as it has penetrated all countries. I call to our association the brothers of every religion, that they would come to us! ... That enlightened men of all cults will unite themselves with this Universal Israelite Alliance" (ibid.) And why? "To break down the barriers which separate that which ONE DAY MUST BE UNITED. See there, Messieurs, the beauty, the great mission of Our Universal Israelite Alliance" (ibid.)

Profiting from their dispersion over every point of the globe, the Jews wish to be in humanity as a sort of leaven, in order to make of human society, presently divided into nations and various religions, "one sole and solid fraternity,"--the Israelite Archives say it less hypocritically: "A Jerusalem of new order, a holy extension from the East to the West, that must EXIT IN ITSELF in the double city of the Caesars and the Popes" (XXV, PP. 600-651, 1861) ...

The Jewish race "Jerusalem" intends to establish its reign over the entire world. "East and West," by establishing its authority upon the ruins of all existing powers. "Caesars and Popes." All authority must disappear in order to make way for the domination of Juda, which "will take the place" of all the existing powers in the spiritual order as well as in the temporal order ...

... We see here that other idea advanced, the idea of the United States of Europe, parallel to the United States of America ...

Here again, one could compare a strange accord between the ideas of the Americanists and the tendencies of those who obey the promptings given by the Universal Israelite Alliance. A most ardent promoter of Americanism, in a discourse given in 1894 to the International Scientific Congress of Catholics at Brussels, had this to say:

"We have thought that the opportunity has been provided us of giving to the ENTIRE WORLD a great lesson. When we study the map of Europe, we see there, marks of small divisions. Lines traversing these maps in every sense. They do not indicate only territorial divisions, they signify also: jealousy, hatred, hostility, divisions of hearts, that commits God knows how many millions of armed men for the destruction of the world. Thus, from all these nations, Providence has allowed immigration among us. All nations find themselves at home here [in the USA]; they have been living among themselves, fraternally, without any hostility. This is the privilege that God has granted to America, that of destroying the traditions of national jealousies that of that you have perpetuated in Europe, by melting them down in America unity."

Read on: "Americanism" [this pompous Americanist continues] "has received from God the mission of giving to the entire world this lesson: the time has come to put an end to the past: abolish frontiers, place all the people in the melting pot of the rights of man by the molding of united humanity, as we [in America] have been founded, we emigrants from all countries, in American unity. And peace shall reign in the world."

Yes, the peace of the slave under the tyranny of one man or of one race.

As of all the other ideas of the Americanists, that of he abolition of frontiers seems to appeal to our Christian democrats. . . .

So then, if the Talmudists [Orthodox Jews] differ from the liberals [Reform Jews], it is only upon knowing which is the better means to employ in order to accomplish the mission that Israel claims to have received ... The Talmudists continue to await a messiah of flesh and bone, who will make them masters of the universe; the liberals say that they do not have any other messiah to expect than the Revolution, "the principles" of which are dissolving of all society and preparing it for their rule. In order to spread these modern "principles," in order to have them bring about the fruits that they are awaiting, they deem it necessary to separate themselves from those observances to which their fathers had been attached, when they believed that their fidelity would hasten the coming of the personal messiah. This is a cumbersome burden, and what's more the Jew of this old way could not "make himself acceptable." He would nevertheless make himself acceptable in the eyes of the people among whom he wished to exercise a "proselytization."

And in what does this conversion consist? Is it to encourage the faithful of various religions to enter into Judaism? The Jews have never had the thought of making a conversion of this sort; they are a people a race apart, "the premier aristocracy of the world," the only ones who are truly men; they would never hear of elevating beings such as those who are human only in appearance ...

In the first place [The Universal Israelite Alliance] acts upon kings and parliaments in order to apply pressure on them, "this singular, indefatigable influence" that [Gourgenot] des Mousseaux already noted in 1869 [see, The Jew, Judaism and The Judaization of the Christian People, by Mousseaux].

What over and above does it demand? LAICIZATION.

There is no person, who is not blind, who cannot fail to see the prodigious efforts that are being made over the last century towards secularization, that is to say, efforts to remove all religious character from everywhere and everyone. Already, on the very origin of the Revolution, [Count Joseph] de Maistre, had remarked that his had been its essential character. "Examine," he said, "all the enterprises of this century, you have to see (these men of the Revolution) constantly occupied in the separation from divinity." It would take too long to show here the many aspects under which the question of laicization or secularization is presented: it spreads itself among all, and in every governmental organ, accordingly, all the forces of society are employed in the success of this work ...

Could Americanism, itself also, have come to lend itself to this work that is certainly not intentional? This is what we have already said is to be feared. It is well to examine this thing more closely.

What is certain, what is incontestable, is that between the Jewish spirit and the Americanist spirit there is a point of contact with the principles of '89 [i.e., the principles of the French Revolution].

We have heard the Jews proclaim and declare the course they are drawing. For the Americans their social and even religious state rests entirely upon these principles; they highly praise them, and the Americanists themselves would have us that "American ideas are those in which GOD wants all the civilized people of our time to be at home." So they conscientiously make of themselves evangelists." ( Monsignor Henri Delassus, Americanism and the Anti-Christian Conspiracy, translated by Mr. Daniel Leonardi and published by Mr. Hugh Akins of Catholic Action Resources Center, Orlando, Florida, October, 2007--first printing in France, 1899, pp. 2-8.)

One sees in this extended passage from Monsignor Delassus's book some very prophetic insights into how the spirit of Talmudic Judaism, which is of the essence of Judeo-Masonry, was able to exploit the Americanist embrace of religious indifferentism and naturalism and semi-Pelagianism to lead directly to the Modernist spirit concerning Church-State relations that helped to shape conciliarism itself.

This is why it is so important for Talmudic organizations to insist that the only Catholics who are to be considered "safe," that is, those who are not deemed by Talmudic organizations to be "anti-Semitic," are those who adhere entirely to the falsehoods of the counterfeit church of conciliarism and to the spirit of the Novus Ordo service. Those Catholics who even dare to think about holding on to "past" concepts that have been repudiated by the Modernist warfare against the nature of dogmatic truth and all of the errors that flow therefrom (including false ecumenism and the clever devices used to defend it by means of the Vatican Ecumenical Directory and the "new evangelization of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II and Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI) must be hounded, identified and tarred and feathered as anti-Semites as they refuse to consent to the "new world order" wrought by the convergence of Americanism and Zionism and Modernism and Protestantism and all forms of naturalism that are represented so well in conciliar thought in what can be termed "conciliarspeak."

A few more passages from Monsignor Delassus's book will help to illustrate these points:

We hasten to say however that if these undying principles are advocated and propagated by the Jews and by the Americanists, they are put forward under quite different aspects.

The Jews hope to spread "liberal and humanitarian Israelitism," the Americanists "a new era for the Church," "an era that could hardly be conceived," so fertile and beautiful would She be! ...

Speaking of the false principle upon which the American Republic is constituted, separation of Church and State, Leo XIII said: "In effect, to wish that the State should be separated from the Church, is to wish, by a logical consequence, that the Church should be reduced to the liberty of living according to COMMON LAW. This separation, it is true, prevails in certain countries. It is a state of affairs that, though it has ITS NUMEROUS AND GRAVE INCONVENIENCES, still offers some advantages, especially when the legislator, in a fortunate inconsistency, is still not apt to be inspired by other than Christian principles; and the advantages, though THEY ARE NOT ABLE TO JUSTIFY THE FALSE PRINCIPE OF SEPARATION, NOR TO AUTHORIZE ITS DEFENSE, nevertheless they are worthy of toleration in order to, in practice, avoid something worse of all" (Leo XIII, Au milieu des solicitudes, February 16, 1892, on Church-State relations.)

A Belgian priest, who exercised the holy ministry in America, wrote in 1896 to the Courier of Brussels: "We are burdened here [in the USA] with something called Broadmindedness. It is not easy to render this word correctly in French. One could say that generally it means: "A quite great liberalism, an outrageous tolerance.(Monsignor Delassus, pp. 8-9.)

This quotation appears on the home page of this site (as it appeared on the sidebar on the left side of every printed issue, save one, of Christ or Chaos between August of 1996 and June of 2003):

"America, it is said, is suffering from intolerance. It is not. It is suffering from tolerance of right and wrong, truth and error, virtue and evil, Christ and chaos. Our country is not nearly so much overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded.... "...In the face of this broadmindedness, what the world needs is intolerance." (Fulton Sheen's "A Plea for Intolerance," 1931)

I will have to save for another day a commentary on the fact that although the late Archbishop Sheen saw the "broadmindedness" of the United States of America, he did not recognize that it was endemic to the very fabric of the false foundation provided it by the "founding fathers."

The next few passages from Monsignor Delassus' book provide evidence that the leading Americanists sounded just like Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI in their embrace of the separation of Church and State and the accommodations that must be made to the "modern" world:

"American Catholicism" is not, in the thought of is promoters, a way of thinking and of practicing Catholicism solely in the contingent and changing things that would be common to the United States, in accordance with the particular conditions that are found on American soil. If this had been so, we would not have believed it incumbent upon us to be concerned with it.

No, their pretension is to speak to the entire universe: "The ear of the world is open to our thinking, if we know what to say to them," Msgr. [Bishop of Richmond, John] Keane had written to the Congress of Brussels. Andin fact they are speaking, and their word has not been without echo upon each part of France. If, at least, they had not put into the ear of the world anything other than what the Church leaves to our free discussion; but, no, as we shall see, we shall come to understand that their words are more or less imposed upon that which belongs to the very fundamentals of the Catholic faith.

The Abbot Klein had said in the preface he gave to The Life of Fr. Hecker: "His [Fr. Hecker's] unique and original work is to have shown the profound harmonies joining the new state of the human spirit to the true Christianity." "The American ideas that he recommended are, he knew, those which GOD wanted all civilized people of our time to be at home with ..."

"The times are solemn," Msgr. Ireland had said, in his discourse, The Church and the Age. "At such an epoch of history ... the desire to know is intense ... The ambition of the spirit, fired up by the marvelous success in every field of human knowledge ... The human heart lets itself go to the strangest ideals ... Something new! Such is the ordered word of humanity, and to renew all things is its firm resolution.

"The moment is opportune for men of talent and character among the children of the Church of God. Today the routine of old times is dead; today the ordinary means lead to the decrepitude of the aged; the crisis demands something new, something extraordinary; and it is upon this condition that the Church shall record the greatest of victories in the greatest of historical ages" (Discourse given in the Cathedral of Baltimore, October 18, 1893, on the occasion of the 25th Anniversary of the Episcopal consecration of Cardinal Gibbons.) (Monsignor Delassus, pp. 9-10.)

Here is a roadmap to the "Second" Vatican Council and to the Novus Ordo itself. Americanism is restless, never satisfied with "tradition," always eager to "act," always desirous of that which is "new" (or novel), that which is full of "energy" and "dynamism," convinced of the human ability to "solve" problems and to create the "better" world. Americanism is a roadmap to both Gaudium et Spes and Dignitatis Humane. It is a roadmap to the ruin of the Faith of millions and a major contributing factor in the worsening of the moral state of man in the world. Americanism is a lie from the devil.

To return to the text of Monsignor Delassus:

The article from Romanus (in The Contemporary Review), that one could read in its entirety in the book of Abbot Klein, Fr. Hecker, Is He a Saint?, is, as the author of that book observes, the SUM of the ideas of Americanism ...

In clear terms [it says there]: GOD is the author of error as He is of truth; the first precedes the second, and the second is born of the first providentially. It is the effect of the great law of evolution that rules everything in the world, and to which religion is subjected as all the rest.

Could the Christian faith be more profoundly attacked, more radically destroyed? ...

It would not take too much to prove blamable by these words, in the expression that they are presented throughout the democracies, that they are anything but children of the doctrine of evolution. That is, when the Americanists from here [Europe] and over there [America] speak to us of the future, of "the new future of the Church" and of its "marching ahead," and of its "new phase" and "of the times that are beginning," etc., etc. ...

There had been in the Congress of Religion in Chicago, a discourse given by one of the leaders in Americanism, and which was entitled The Final Religion, The Ultimate Religion. In that speech, it had been said: "The religions consist of systems for the regular or irregular fulfillment of this great goal; the union of man with God." It is impossible to better describe the way and the end of religious evolution. But this end, the one that is to be watched out for, is not any different than that to which the United Israelite Alliance has directed its own efforts.

In the Fortnightly, on The Life of Fr, Hecker, Abbot Klein explains to his readers, how that book more suitably makes clear "the present evolution of humanity" and the nature "of studies and reforms that the new conditions of the world, at once well contain, imposes, without possible resistance, upon all those who would promote the INTERIOR ADVANCEMENT and the EXTERIOR EXPANSION of Christianity ..."

These novel ways, do they keep in their novelty the necessary moral uprightness? This is what it is reasonable to doubt.

"I want," Fr. Hecker said, "to open the door of the Church to the rationalists; they seem to me to be shut in on themselves. I sense that I am the pioneer to open the way. I am myself threading my way as in contraband [smuggling, interloping]" (The Life of Fr. Hecker).

That last sentence is an every foreshadowing of Joseph Ratzinger's whole view as to how to deal with secularism as he tries to convince everyone, including Mohammedans, to be participants in "inter-religious dialogue" and to accept the fundamental heresy, as Pope Pius VII termed it in Post Tam Diuturnas, April 29, 1814, of religious liberty.

To the denouement of the excerpts from Monsignor Delassus's book (which, along with the one about Cardinal Pie's work on the Social Reign of Christ the King, I urge each of m readers to purchase and to make available to others) must be read in its entirety by any serious Catholic:

His [Hecker's] biographer explains these words adding, "I should wish to ABOLISH CUSTOMS in order to provide easy and widespread entry into the Church for all those who have nothing other than reason for their guide."

Msgr. Keane does not speak otherwise. In an article published in the Bulletin of the Catholic Institute of Paris, he said: "Since a distinctive trait of the mission of America is, FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF BARRIERS and of hostilities that separate the races, could the return to unity among the children of GOD, so long divided, be analogous to those who are concerned with religious divisions and hostilities? Could not the congress of religions end up in an international congress of religions that would all come to be united in a tolerance and a mutual charity, where all forms of religion would stand up against all forms of irreligion? ... (Monsignor Delassus, p. 12)

Who just recently met--and prayed with--the head of the pro-abortion World Council of Churches? Who believes that "believers" working together can oppose secularism and its effects in the world? Who has dared to slap God in the face by permitting the horror of non-Catholic "Christian prayer" and other "services," things that are loathsome and detestable in the sight of God, to be offered in the Archbasilica of Saint Paul Outside of the Walls? Who? Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, a true ideological son of Isaac Thomas Hecker and John Ireland and John Keane and James Gibbons, that's who.

Oh, yes, finally to Monsignor Delassus:

And at the same time, this is the business of "liberal and humanitarian Israelitism." It also advocates in itself "the clearing up of all that which prevents Judaism from MAKING ITSELF ACCEPTED, in order not to fail in the proselytizing that the must exercise (Israelite Archives, 1867).

How would this be accomplished? By polemic [disputation]. The doctors, in combating error, had given vent to the truth.

All this must be changed from now on. The speaker already cited, at the Congress of Brussels, said: "It is not by controversy, but by irenism that we shall succeed" (Irenism," from the Greek word for "peace," is the ideology that hold out for peace at any cost--even to assimilating all religious differences].

For those who are not versed in Greek, we say that the first word points to the struggle, the discussion, and the second, peace, tolerance, conciliation. Thus, according to the Americanists, in order to succeed in making all men one sole flock under the same fold, all controversy must from now on be avoided. Disputes with the innovators had only multiplied division and separations, schisms and heresies: in the future, tolerance, the laying down of peace, shall support all the sheep of the Father's family--perhaps. But what kind of sheep? And wouldn't the flock in fact soon become contaminated.? (Monsignor Delassus, pp. 12-13.)

Pope Leo XIII saw this clearly, which is why he warned James Cardinal Gibbons in Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae, that Americanism portended grave dangers for the Faith in the future:

But if this [the term Americanism] is to be so understood that the doctrines which have been adverted to above are not only indicated, but exalted, there can be no manner of doubt that our venerable brethren, the bishops of America, would be the first to repudiate and condemn it as being most injurious to themselves and to their country. For it would give rise to the suspicion that there are among you some who conceive of and desire a Church in America that is to be different from which it is in the rest of the world.

As I have noted on any number of occasions in the past, the Potomac flows just as much in to the Tiber as does the Rhine. That is, the errors of the Americanists had just much a role to play in the creation of the counterfeit church of conciliarism as did the writings of the "new theologians" from Germany (and a few from The Netherlands and Switzerland thrown in for good measure).

The lie of Americanism is the lie of Martin Luther and Judeo-Masonry all rolled into one, that is, the lie that the true Church must not be recognized by the civil state as its official religion. This is false, as I quoted Pope Saint Pius X's firm declaration in Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906, to this effect endless numbers of times on this site. This lie was also exploded by the late Louis-Edouard-François-Desiré Cardinal Pie, as can be see in this passage from
Selected Writings of Cardinal Pie of Poitiers:

"If Jesus Christ," proclaims Msgr. Pie in a magnificent pastoral instruction, "if Jesus Christ Who is our light whereby we are drawn out of the seat of darkness and from the shadow of death, and Who has given to the world the treasure of truth and grace, if He has not enriched the world, I mean to say the social and political world itself, from the great evils which prevail in the heart of paganism, then it is to say that the work of Jesus Christ is not a divine work. Even more so: if the Gospel which would save men is incapable of procuring the actual progress of peoples, if the revealed light which is profitable to individuals is detrimental to society at large, if the scepter of Christ, sweet and beneficial to souls, and perhaps to families, is harmful and unacceptable for cities and empires; in other words, if Jesus Christ to whom the Prophets had promised and to Whom His Father had given the nations as a heritage, is not able to exercise His authority over them for it would be to their detriment and temporal disadvantage, it would have to be concluded that Jesus Christ is not God". . . .

"To say Jesus Christ is the God of individuals and of families, but not the God of peoples and of societies, is to say that He is not God. To say that Christianity is the law of individual man and is not the law of collective man, is to say that Christianity is not divine. To say that the Church is the judge of private morality, but has nothing to do with public and political morality, is to say that the Church is not divine."

In fine, Cardinal Pie insists:

"Christianity would not be divine if it were to have existence within individuals but not with regard to societies."

Fr. de St. Just asks, in conclusion:

"Could it be proven in clearer terms that social atheism conduces to individualistic atheism?"

Moving ahead several pages in Fr. de St. Just's The Kingship of Christ According to Cardinal Pie of Poitiers, we continue with Msgr. Pie's observations:

"There is no more public morality, no more justice, you will say. These results astonish you; it should have been easy to predict. Isn't this as a pagan saying has it, that it would be easier to build a city in the air than to have a society without God. Isn't this what the Roman orator [Cicero] had said, that the stability of commerce and the greatest of virtues, which in justice, would be undermined along with loss of respect for a strong faith in the divinity? Hasn't the Holy Ghost declared in the most energetic language that when impious men rule men can expect nothing other than ruin: 'When the wicked shall bear rule, the people shall mourn' (Prov. 9: 2)

"You add: all is going, all is in decline. And still you are astonished again, this should have been easy to foresee ... Because the legislation has made a profession of neutrality and of abstention concerning the existence of God, upon what foundation will its proper authority be established? In permitting me to not acknowledge God, am I not authorized to belittle God Himself? We have not elected to place dogma in the law, you tell me. And I reply: if the dogma of the existence of God i snot found in the law, then the law is no longer so in the true sense of the word, it is nothing but a pipedream." (pp. 50-53, 63).

"Neither in His Person," Card, Pie said in a celebrated pastoral instruction, "nor in the exercise of His rights, can Jesus Christ be divided, dissolved, split up; in Him the distinction of natures and operations can never be separated or opposed; the divine cannot be incompatible to the human, nor the human to the divine. On the contrary, it is the peace, the drawing together, the reconciliation; it is the very character of union which has made the two things one: 'He is our peace, Who hat made both one. . .' (Eph. 2:14). This is why St. John told us: 'every spirit that dissolveth Jesus is not of God. And this is Antichrist, of whom you have heard that he cometh: and is now already in the world' (1 John 4:3; cf. also 1 John 2:18, 22; 2 John: 7). "So then, Card. Pie continues, "when I hear certain talk being spread around, certain pithy statements (i.e., 'Separation of Church and State,' for one, and the enigmatic axiom 'A free Church in a free State,' for another) prevailing from day to day, and which are being introduced into the heart of societies, the dissolvent by which the world must perish, I utter this cry of alarm: Beware the Antichrist."

Fr. de St. Just adds:

"Accordingly, the Bishop of Poitiers had always fought against THE SEPARATION OF Church and State. Moreover, he opposed all separations, that of reason and faith, of nature and grace, of natural religion and revealed religion, the separation of the philosopher and the Christian, of private man and public man. He saw in all these [separations] a resurgence of Manichean dualism and he had fought all these with, the supreme argument, the law formed by Christ. Therefore, it is in all truth, writing to [Minister of the Interior] the Count of Presigny, that he could render this testimony:

'We have nothing in common with the theorists of disunion and opposition of two orders, temporal and spiritual, natural and supernatural. We struggle, on the contrary, with all our strength against these doctrines of separation which is leading to the denial of religion itself and of revealed religion.'"

Fr. de St. Just returns at this point and introduces us to what is perhaps Msgr. Pie's strongest language, with regard to this entire subject:

"To this doctrine of the Church, which Msgr. Pie brought to the mind of the rulers of nations, the liberals would oppose acts favoring separation.

"Certain countries, Belgium and America, for example, haven't they proclaimed the separation of Church and State, and doesn't the Church enjoy a more complete liberty under such a system?"

The late Louis-Edouard-François-Desiré Cardinal Pie was not making any of this up. He was reiterating the constant teaching of the Catholic Church. Look at the consistency of the teaching that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI believes is no longer binding because truth can become "obsolete" in the "particulars it contains, which means that God reveals things so obscurely that men can later discover that His Church was "wrong" for centuries on important points of doctrine, which means, of course, that God Himself is not immutable, which means that there is no God. Take a look at the consistency of this teaching against all modern errors, including Freemasonry and "civil liberty," and understand how the Protestant and American and French Revolutions--and the conspiracy against Christ the King launched and raised by the ancient enemies of the Faith--have spat on this teaching and must kill every mention of it:

Since the divine clemency has placed Us, Whose merits are not equal to the task, in the high watch-tower of the Apostolate with the duty of pastoral care confided to Us, We have turned Our attention, as far as it has been granted Us from on high, with unceasing care to those things through which the integrity of Orthodox Religion is kept from errors and vices by preventing their entry, and by which the dangers of disturbance in the most troubled times are repelled from the whole Catholic World.

Now it has come to Our ears, and common gossip has made clear, that certain Societies, Companies, Assemblies, Meetings, Congregations or Conventicles called in the popular tongue Liberi Muratori or Francs Massons or by other names according to the various languages, are spreading far and wide and daily growing in strength; and men of any Religion or sect, satisfied with the appearance of natural probity, are joined together, according to their laws and the statutes laid down for them, by a strict and unbreakable bond which obliges them, both by an oath upon the Holy Bible and by a host of grievous punishment, to an inviolable silence about all that they do in secret together. But it is in the nature of crime to betray itself and to show itself by its attendant clamor. Thus these aforesaid Societies or Conventicles have caused in the minds of the faithful the greatest suspicion, and all prudent and upright men have passed the same judgment on them as being depraved and perverted. For if they were not doing evil they would not have so great a hatred of the light. Indeed, this rumor has grown to such proportions that in several countries these societies have been forbidden by the civil authorities as being against the public security, and for some time past have appeared to be prudently eliminated.

Therefore, bearing in mind the great harm which is often caused by such Societies or Conventicles not only to the peace of the temporal state but also to the well-being of souls, and realizing that they do not hold by either civil or canonical sanctions; and since We are taught by the divine word that it is the part of faithful servant and of the master of the Lord's household to watch day and night lest such men as these break into the household like thieves, and like foxes seek to destroy the vineyard; in fact, to prevent the hearts of the simple being perverted, and the innocent secretly wounded by their arrows, and to block that broad road which could be opened to the uncorrected commission of sin and for the other just and reasonable motives known to Us; We therefore, having taken counsel of some of Our Venerable Brothers among the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, and also of Our own accord and with certain knowledge and mature deliberations, with the plenitude of the Apostolic power do hereby determine and have decreed that these same Societies, Companies, Assemblies, Meetings, Congregations, or Conventicles of Liberi Muratori or Francs Massons, or whatever other name they may go by, are to be condemned and prohibited, and by Our present Constitution, valid for ever, We do condemn and prohibit them.

Wherefore We command most strictly and in virtue of holy obedience, all the faithful of whatever state, grade, condition, order, dignity or pre-eminence, whether clerical or lay, secular or regular, even those who are entitled to specific and individual mention, that none, under any pretext or for any reason, shall dare or presume to enter, propagate or support these aforesaid societies of Liberi Muratori or Francs Massons, or however else they are called, or to receive them in their houses or dwellings or to hide them, be enrolled among them, joined to them, be present with them, give power or permission for them to meet elsewhere, to help them in any way, to give them in any way advice, encouragement or support either openly or in secret, directly or indirectly, on their own or through others; nor are they to urge others or tell them, incite or persuade them to be enrolled in such societies or to be counted among their number, or to be present or to assist them in any way; but they must stay completely clear of such Societies, Companies, Assemblies, Meetings, Congregations or Conventicles, under pain of excommunication for all the above mentioned people, which is incurred by the very deed without any declaration being required, and from which no one can obtain the benefit of absolution, other than at the hour of death, except through Ourselves or the Roman Pontiff of the time. (Pope Clement XII, In Eminenti, April 28, 1738.)

Therefore since the Holy Spirit has made you bishops to govern the Church of God and has taught you concerning the unique sacrament of human salvation, We cannot neglect our duty in the face of these evil books. We must arouse the enthusiasm of your devotion so that you, who are called to share in Our pastoral concern join together to oppose this evil with all energy possible. It is necessary to fight bitterly, as the situation requires, and to eradicate with all our strength the deadly destruction caused by such books. The substance of the error will never be removed unless the criminal elements of wickedness burn in the fire and perish. Since you have been constituted stewards of the mysteries of God and armed with His strength to destroy their defenses, exert yourselves to keep the sheep entrusted to you and redeemed by the blood of Christ at a safe distance from these poisoned pastures. For if it is necessary to avoid the company of evildoers because their words encourage impiety and their speech acts like a cancer, what desolation the plague of their books can cause! Well and cunningly written these books are always with us and forever within our reach. They travel with us, stay at home with us, and enter bedrooms which would be shut to their evil and deception.

Since you have been constituted ministers of Christ for the nations, in order to make holy his Gospel, exert yourselves and do everything in your power both by word and example to cut down the shoots of falsehood. Block up the corrupt springs of vice. Sound the trumpet in case as their leader you have to account for the souls who are lost. Act according to the position you hold, according to the rank with which you are vested, and according to the authority which you have received from the Lord. In addition, as nobody could or should avoid sharing in this sadness and insofar as there is one common reason for everyone to grieve and to help in this great crisis of faith and religion, call to your aid when it is necessary the time-honored piety of Catholic leaders. Explain the cause of the Church's sorrow and arouse its beloved sons who have always served it well on many occasions to bring their help. Since they do not carry the sword without cause, urge them with the united authority of state and of priesthood, to vigorously rout those accursed men who fight against the armies of Israel.

It is principally your duty to stand as a wall so that no foundation can be laid other than the one that is already laid. Watch over the most holy deposit of faith to whose protection you committed yourselves on oath at your solemn consecration. Reveal to the faithful the wolves which are demolishing the Lord's vineyard. They should be warned not to allow themselves to be ensnared by the splendid writing of certain authors in order to halt the diffusion of error by cunning and wicked men. In a word, they should detest books which contain elements shocking to the reader; which are contrary to faith, religion, and good morals; and which lack an atmosphere of Christian virtue. We manifest to you Our great happiness in this matter that most of you, following the apostolic customs and energetically defending the laws of the Church, have shown yourselves zealous and watchful in order to avert this pestilence and have not allowed the simple people to sleep soundly with serpents. (Pope Clement XIII, Christianae Reipublicae, November 25, 1766.

When they have spread this darkness abroad and torn religion out of men's hearts, these accursed philosophers proceed to destroy the bonds of union among men, both those which unite them to their rulers, and those which urge them to their duty. They keep proclaiming that man is born free and subject to no one, that society accordingly is a crowd of foolish men who stupidly yield to priests who deceive them and to kings who oppress them, so that the harmony of priest and ruler is only a monstrous conspiracy against the innate liberty of man.

Everyone must understand that such ravings and others like them, concealed in many deceitful guises, cause greater ruin to public calm the longer their impious originators are unrestrained. They cause a serious loss of souls redeemed by Christ's blood wherever their teaching spreads, like a cancer; it forces its way into public academies, into the houses of the great, into the palaces of kings, and even enters the sanctuary, shocking as it is to say so.

Consequently, you who are the salt of the earth, guardians and shepherds of the Lord's flock, whose business it is to fight the battles of the Lord, arise and gird on your sword, which is the word of God, and expel this foul contagion from your lands. How long are we to ignore the common insult to faith and Church? Let the words of Bernard arouse us like a lament of the spouse of Christ: "Of old was it foretold and the time of fulfillment is now at hand: Behold, in peace is my sorrow most sorrowful. It was sorrowful first when the martyrs died; afterwards it was more sorrowful in the fight with the heretics and now it is most sorrowful in the conduct of the members of the household.... The Church is struck within and so in peace is my sorrow most sorrowful. But what peace? There is peace and there is no peace. There is peace from the pagans and peace from the heretics, but no peace from the children. At that time the voice will lament: Sons did I rear and exalt, but they despised me. They despised me and defiled me by a bad life, base gain, evil traffic, and business conducted in the dark." Who can hear these tearful complaints of our most holy mother without feeling a strong urge to devote all his energy and effort to the Church, as he has promised? Therefore cast out the old leaven, remove the evil from your midst. Forcefully and carefully banish poisonous books from the eyes of your flock, and at once courageously set apart those who have been infected, to prevent them harming the rest. The holy Pope Leo used to say, "We can rule those entrusted to us only by pursuing with zeal for the Lord's faith those who destroy and those who are destroyed and by cutting them off from sound minds with the utmost severity to prevent the plague spreading." In doing this We exhort and advise you to be all of one mind and in harmony as you strive for the same object, just as the Church has one faith, one baptism, and one spirit
As you are joined together in the hierarchy, so you should unite equally with virtue and desire. (Pope Pius VI, Inscrutabile, December 25, 1775.)

For how can We tolerate with equanimity that the Catholic religion, which France received in the first ages of the Church, which was confirmed in that very kingdom by the blood of so many most valiant martyrs, which by far the greatest part of the French race professes, and indeed bravely and constantly defended even among the most grave adversities and persecutions and dangers of recent years, and which, finally, that very dynasty to which the designated king belongs both professes and has defended with much zeal - that this Catholic, this most holy religion, We say, should not only not be declared to be the only one in the whole of France supported by the bulwark of the laws and by the authority of the Government, but should even, in the very restoration of the monarchy, be entirely passed over? But a much more grave, and indeed very bitter, sorrow increased in Our heart - a sorrow by which We confess that We were crushed, overwhelmed and torn in two - from the twenty-second article of the constitution in which We saw, not only that "liberty of religion and of conscience" (to use the same words found in the article) were permitted by the force of the constitution, but also that assistance and patronage were promised both to this liberty and also to the ministers of these different forms of "religion". There is certainly no need of many words, in addressing you, to make you fully recognize by how lethal a wound the Catholic religion in France is struck by this article. For when the liberty of all "religions" is indiscriminately asserted, by this very fact truth is confounded with error and the holy and immaculate Spouse of Christ, the Church, outside of which there can be no salvation, is set on a par with the sects of heretics and with Judaic perfidy itself. For when favour and patronage is promised even to the sects of heretics and their ministers, not only their persons, but also their very errors, are tolerated and fostered: a system of errors in which is contained that fatal and never sufficiently to be deplored HERESY which, as St. Augustine says (de Haeresibus, no.72), "asserts that all heretics proceed correctly and tell the truth: which is so absurd that it seems incredible to me." (Pope Pius VII, Post Tam Diuturnas, April 29, 1814.)

Nor can We predict happier times for religion and government from the plans of those who desire vehemently to separate the Church from the state, and to break the mutual concord between temporal authority and the priesthood. It is certain that that concord which always was favorable and beneficial for the sacred and the civil order is feared by the shameless lovers of liberty.

But for the other painful causes We are concerned about, you should recall that certain societies and assemblages seem to draw up a battle line together with the followers of every false religion and cult. They feign piety for religion; but they are driven by a passion for promoting novelties and sedition everywhere. They preach liberty of every sort; they stir up disturbances in sacred and civil affairs, and pluck authority to pieces. (Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832.)

But, although we have not omitted often to proscribe and reprobate the chief errors of this kind, yet the cause of the Catholic Church, and the salvation of souls entrusted to us by God, and the welfare of human society itself, altogether demand that we again stir up your pastoral solicitude to exterminate other evil opinions, which spring forth from the said errors as from a fountain. Which false and perverse opinions are on that ground the more to be detested, because they chiefly tend to this, that that salutary influence be impeded and (even) removed, which the Catholic Church, according to the institution and command of her Divine Author, should freely exercise even to the end of the world -- not only over private individuals, but over nations, peoples, and their sovereign princes; and (tend also) to take away that mutual fellowship and concord of counsels between Church and State which has ever proved itself propitious and salutary, both for religious and civil interests.

For you well know, venerable brethren, that at this time men are found not a few who, applying to civil society the impious and absurd principle of "naturalism," as they call it, dare to teach that "the best constitution of public society and (also) civil progress altogether require that human society be conducted and governed without regard being had to religion any more than if it did not exist; or, at least, without any distinction being made between the true religion and false ones." And, against the doctrine of Scripture, of the Church, and of the Holy Fathers, they do not hesitate to assert that "that is the best condition of civil society, in which no duty is recognized, as attached to the civil power, of restraining by enacted penalties, offenders against the Catholic religion, except so far as public peace may require." From which totally false idea of social government they do not fear to foster that erroneous opinion, most fatal in its effects on the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls, called by Our Predecessor, Gregory XVI, an "insanity,"2 viz., that "liberty of conscience and worship is each man's personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society; and that a right resides in the citizens to an absolute liberty, which should be restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastical or civil, whereby they may be able openly and publicly to manifest and declare any of their ideas whatever, either by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way." But, while they rashly affirm this, they do not think and consider that they are preaching "liberty of perdition;"3 and that "if human arguments are always allowed free room for discussion, there will never be wanting men who will dare to resist truth, and to trust in the flowing speech of human wisdom; whereas we know, from the very teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, how carefully Christian faith and wisdom should avoid this most injurious babbling." (Pope Pius IX, Quanta Cura, December 8, 1964.)

55. The Church ought to be separated from the .State, and the State from the Church. -- Allocution "Acerbissimum," Sept. 27, 1852. (Condemned Proposition in The Syllabus of Errors, 1864.)

As a consequence, the State, constituted as it is, is clearly bound to act up to the manifold and weighty duties linking it to God, by the public profession of religion. Nature and reason, which command every individual devoutly to worship God in holiness, because we belong to Him and must return to Him, since from Him we came, bind also the civil community by a like law. For, men living together in society are under the power of God no less than individuals are, and society, no less than individuals, owes gratitude to God who gave it being and maintains it and whose everbounteous goodness enriches it with countless blessings. Since, then, no one is allowed to be remiss in the service due to God, and since the chief duty of all men is to cling to religion in both its teaching and practice-not such religion as they may have a preference for, but the religion which God enjoins, and which certain and most clear marks show to be the only one true religion -- it is a public crime to act as though there were no God. So, too, is it a sin for the State not to have care for religion as a something beyond its scope, or as of no practical benefit; or out of many forms of religion to adopt that one which chimes in with the fancy; for we are bound absolutely to worship God in that way which He has shown to be His will. All who rule, therefore, would hold in honor the holy name of God, and one of their chief duties must be to favor religion, to protect it, to shield it under the credit and sanction of the laws, and neither to organize nor enact any measure that may compromise its safety. This is the bounden duty of rulers to the people over whom they rule. For one and all are we destined by our birth and adoption to enjoy, when this frail and fleeting life is ended, a supreme and final good in heaven, and to the attainment of this every endeavor should be directed. Since, then, upon this depends the full and perfect happiness of mankind, the securing of this end should be of all imaginable interests the most urgent. Hence, civil society, established for the common welfare, should not only safeguard the wellbeing of the community, but have also at heart the interests of its individual members, in such mode as not in any way to hinder, but in every manner to render as easy as may be, the possession of that highest and unchangeable good for which all should seek. Wherefore, for this purpose, care must especially be taken to preserve unharmed and unimpeded the religion whereof the practice is the link connecting man with God.

Now, it cannot be difficult to find out which is the true religion, if only it be sought with an earnest and unbiased mind; for proofs are abundant and striking. We have, for example, the fulfillment of prophecies, miracles in great numbers, the rapid spread of the faith in the midst of enemies and in face of overwhelming obstacles, the witness of the martyrs, and the like. From all these it is evident that the only true religion is the one established by Jesus Christ Himself, and which He committed to His Church to protect and to propagate. . . .
To exclude the Church, founded by God Himself, from the business of life, from the making of laws, from the education of youth, from domestic society is a grave and fatal error
(Pope Leo XII, Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885.)

There are others, somewhat more moderate though not more consistent, who affirm that the morality of individuals is to be guided by the divine law, but not the morality of the State, for that in public affairs the commands of God may be passed over, and may be entirely disregarded in the framing of laws. Hence follows the fatal theory of the need of separation between Church and State. But the absurdity of such a position is manifest. Nature herself proclaims the necessity of the State providing means and opportunities whereby the community may be enabled to live properly, that is to say, according to the laws of God. For, since God is the source of all goodness and justice, it is absolutely ridiculous that the State should pay no attention to these laws or render them abortive by contrary enactments. Besides, those who are in authority owe it to the commonwealth not only to provide for its external well-being and the conveniences of life, but still more to consult the welfare of men's souls in the wisdom of their legislation. But, for the increase of such benefits, nothing more suitable can be conceived than the laws which have God for their author; and, therefore, they who in their government of the State take no account of these laws abuse political power by causing it to deviate from its proper end and from what nature itself prescribes. And, what is still more important, and what We have more than once pointed out, although the civil authority has not the same proximate end as the spiritual, nor proceeds on the same lines, nevertheless in the exercise of their separate powers they must occasionally meet. For their subjects are the same, and not infrequently they deal with the same objects, though in different ways. Whenever this occurs, since a state of conflict is absurd and manifestly repugnant to the most wise ordinance of God, there must necessarily exist some order or mode of procedure to remove the occasions of difference and contention, and to secure harmony in all things. This harmony has been not inaptly compared to that which exists between the body and the soul for the well-being of both one and the other, the separation of which brings irremediable harm to the body, since it extinguishes its very life (Pope Leo XIII, Libertas, June 20, 1888.)

From this it may clearly be seen what con sequences are to be expected from that false pride which, rejecting our Saviour's Kingship, places man at the summit of all things and declares that human nature must rule supreme. And yet, this supreme rule can neither be attained nor even defined. The rule of Jesus Christ derives its form and its power from Divine Love: a holy and orderly charity is both its foundation and its crown. Its necessary consequences are the strict fulfilment of duty, respect of mutual rights, the estimation of the things of heaven above those of earth, the preference of the love of God to all things. But this supremacy of man, which openly rejects Christ, or at least ignores Him, is entirely founded upon selfishness, knowing neither charity nor selfdevotion. Man may indeed be king, through Jesus Christ: but only on condition that he first of all obey God, and diligently seek his rule of life in God's law. By the law of Christ we mean not only the natural precepts of morality and the Ancient Law, all of which Jesus Christ has perfected and crowned by His declaration, explanation and sanction; but also the rest of His doctrine and His own peculiar institutions. Of these the chief is His Church. Indeed whatsoever things Christ has instituted are most fully contained in His Church. Moreover, He willed to perpetuate the office assigned to Him by His Father by means of the ministry of the Church so gloriously founded by Himself. On the one hand He confided to her all the means of men's salvation, on the other He most solemnly commanded men to be subject to her and to obey her diligently, and to follow her even as Himself: "He that heareth you, heareth Me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me" (Luke x, 16). Wherefore the law of Christ must be sought in the Church. Christ is man's "Way"; the Church also is his "Way"-Christ of Himself and by His very nature, the Church by His commission and the communication of His power. Hence all who would find salvation apart from the Church, are led astray and strive in vain.

As with individuals, so with nations. These, too, must necessarily tend to ruin if they go astray from "The Way." The Son of God, the Creator and Redeemer of mankind, is King and Lord of the earth, and holds supreme dominion over men, both individually and collectively. "And He gave Him power, and glory, and a kingdom: and all peoples, tribes, and tongues shall serve Him" (Daniel vii., 14). "I am appointed King by Him . . . I will give Thee the Gentiles for Thy inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession" (Psalm ii., 6, 8). Therefore the law of Christ ought to prevail in human society and be the guide and teacher of public as well as of private life. Since this is so by divine decree, and no man may with impunity contravene it, it is an evil thing for the common weal wherever Christianity does not hold the place that belongs to it. When Jesus Christ is absent, human reason fails, being bereft of its chief protection and light, and the very end is lost sight of, for which, under God's providence, human society has been built up. This end is the obtaining by the members of society of natural good through the aid of civil unity, though always in harmony with the perfect and eternal good which is above nature. But when men's minds are clouded, both rulers and ruled go astray, for they have no safe line to follow nor end to aim at. (Pope Leo XIII, Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, November 1, 1900.)

Just as Christianity cannot penetrate into the soul without making it better, so it cannot enter into public life without establishing order. With the idea of a God Who governs all, Who is infinitely wise, good, and just, the idea of duty seizes upon the consciences of men. It assuages sorrow, it calms hatred, it engenders heroes. If it has transformed pagan society--and that transformation was a veritable resurrection--for barbarism disappeared in proportion as Christianity extended its sway, so, after the terrible shocks which unbelief has given to the world in our days, it will be able to put that world again on the true road, and bring back to order the states and peoples of modern times. But the return of Christianity will not be efficacious and complete if it does not restore the world to a sincere love of the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. In the Catholic Church Christianity is Incarnate. It identifies itself with that perfect, spiritual, and, in its own order, sovereign society, which is the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ and which has for Its visible head the Roman Pontiff, successor of the Prince of the Apostles. It is the continuation of the mission of the Savior, the daughter and the heiress of His Redemption. It has preached the Gospel, and has defended it at the price of its blood, and strong in the Divine assistance and of that immortality which has been promised it, it makes no terms with error but remains faithful to the commands which It has received, to carry the doctrine of Jesus Christ to the uttermost limits of the world and to the end of time, and to protect it in its inviolable integrity. Legitimate dispenser of the teachings of the Gospel It does not reveal itself only as the consoler and Redeemer of souls, but It is still more the internal source of justice and charity, and the propagator as well as the guardian of true liberty, and of that equality which alone is possible here below. In applying the doctrine of its Divine Founder, It maintains a wise equilibrium and marks the true limits between the rights and privileges of society. The equality which it proclaims does not destroy the distinction between the different social classes It keeps them intact, as nature itself demands, in order to oppose the anarchy of reason emancipated from Faith, and abandoned to its own devices. The liberty which it gives in no wise conflicts with the rights of truth, because those rights are superior to the demands of liberty. Not does it infringe upon the rights of justice, because those rights are superior to the claims of mere numbers or power. Nor does it assail the rights of God because they are superior to the rights of humanity. (Pope Leo XIII, A Review of His Pontificate, March 19, 1902.)

That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based, as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God; for the Creator of man is also the Founder of human societies, and preserves their existence as He preserves our own. We owe Him, therefore, not only a private cult, but a public and social worship to honor Him. Besides, this thesis is an obvious negation of the supernatural order. It limits the action of the State to the pursuit of public prosperity during this life only, which is but the proximate object of political societies; and it occupies itself in no fashion (on the plea that this is foreign to it) with their ultimate object which is man's eternal happiness after this short life shall have run its course. But as the present order of things is temporary and subordinated to the conquest of man's supreme and absolute welfare, it follows that the civil power must not only place no obstacle in the way of this conquest, but must aid us in effecting it. The same thesis also upsets the order providentially established by God in the world, which demands a harmonious agreement between the two societies. Both of them, the civil and the religious society, although each exercises in its own sphere its authority over them. It follows necessarily that there are many things belonging to them in common in which both societies must have relations with one another. Remove the agreement between Church and State, and the result will be that from these common matters will spring the seeds of disputes which will become acute on both sides; it will become more difficult to see where the truth lies, and great confusion is certain to arise. Finally, this thesis inflicts great injury on society itself, for it cannot either prosper or last long when due place is not left for religion, which is the supreme rule and the sovereign mistress in all questions touching the rights and the duties of men. Hence the Roman Pontiffs have never ceased, as circumstances required, to refute and condemn the doctrine of the separation of Church and State. Our illustrious predecessor, Leo XIII, especially, has frequently and magnificently expounded Catholic teaching on the relations which should subsist between the two societies. "Between them," he says, "there must necessarily be a suitable union, which may not improperly be compared with that existing between body and soul.-"Quaedam intercedat necesse est ordinata colligatio (inter illas) quae quidem conjunctioni non immerito comparatur, per quam anima et corpus in homine copulantur." He proceeds: "Human societies cannot, without becoming criminal, act as if God did not exist or refuse to concern themselves with religion, as though it were something foreign to them, or of no purpose to them.... As for the Church, which has God Himself for its author, to exclude her from the active life of the nation, from the laws, the education of the young, the family, is to commit a great and pernicious error. -- "Civitates non possunt, citra scellus, gerere se tamquam si Deus omnino non esset, aut curam religionis velut alienam nihilque profuturam abjicere.... Ecclesiam vero, quam Deus ipse constituit, ab actione vitae excludere, a legibus, ab institutione adolescentium, a societate domestica, magnus et perniciousus est error." (Pope Saint Pius X, Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906.)

But it is not only within her own household that the Church must come to terms. Besides her relations with those within, she has others with those who are outside. The Church does not occupy the world all by herself; there are other societies in the world., with which she must necessarily have dealings and contact. The rights and duties of the Church towards civil societies must, therefore, be determined, and determined, of course, by her own nature, that, to wit, which the Modernists have already described to us. The rules to be applied in this matter are clearly those which have been laid down for science and faith, though in the latter case the question turned upon the object, while in the present case we have one of ends. In the same way, then, as faith and science are alien to each other by reason of the diversity of their objects, Church and State are strangers by reason of the diversity of their ends, that of the Church being spiritual while that of the State is temporal. Formerly it was possible to subordinate the temporal to the spiritual and to speak of some questions as mixed, conceding to the Church the position of queen and mistress in all such, because the Church was then regarded as having been instituted immediately by God as the author of the supernatural order. But this doctrine is today repudiated alike by philosophers and historians. The state must, therefore, be separated from the Church, and the Catholic from the citizen. Every Catholic, from the fact that he is also a citizen, has the right and the duty to work for the common good in the way he thinks best, without troubling himself about the authority of the Church, without paying any heed to its wishes, its counsels, its orders -- nay, even in spite of its rebukes. For the Church to trace out and prescribe for the citizen any line of action, on any pretext whatsoever, is to be guilty of an abuse of authority, against which one is bound to protest with all one's might. Venerable Brethren, the principles from which these doctrines spring have been solemnly condemned by Our predecessor, Pius VI, in his Apostolic Constitution Auctorem fidei (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

But, on the contrary, by ignoring the laws governing human nature and by breaking the bounds within which they operate, the human person is lead, not toward progress, but towards death. This, nevertheless, is what they want to do with human society; they dream of changing its natural and traditional foundations; they dream of a Future City built on different principles, and they dare to proclaim these more fruitful and more beneficial than the principles upon which the present Christian City rests.

No, Venerable Brethren, We must repeat with the utmost energy in these times of social and intellectual anarchy when everyone takes it upon himself to teach as a teacher and lawmaker - the City cannot be built otherwise than as God has built it; society cannot be setup unless the Church lays the foundations and supervises the work; no, civilization is not something yet to be found, nor is the New City to be built on hazy notions; it has been in existence and still is: it is Christian civilization, it is the Catholic City. It has only to be set up and restored continually against the unremitting attacks of insane dreamers, rebels and miscreants. omnia instaurare in Christo. (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910.)

Let the Princes and Rulers of peoples remember this truth, and let them consider whether it is a prudent and safe idea for governments or for states to separate themselves from the holy religion of Jesus Christ, from which their authority receives such strength and support. Let them consider again and again, whether it is a measure of political wisdom to seek to divorce the teaching of the Gospel and of the Church from the ruling of a country and from the public education of the young. Sad experience proves that human authority fails where religion is set aside. The fate of our first parent after the Fall is wont to come also upon nations. As in his case, no sooner had his will turned from God than his unchained passions rejected the sway of the will; so, too, when the rulers of nations despise divine authority, in their turn the people are wont to despise their human authority. There remains, of course, the expedient of using force to repress popular risings; but what is the result? Force can repress the body, but it cannot repress the souls of men. (Pope Benedict XV, Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum, November 1, 1914.)

When, therefore, governments and nations follow in all their activities, whether they be national or international, the dictates of conscience grounded in the teachings, precepts, and example of Jesus Christ, and which are binding on each and every individual, then only can we have faith in one another's word and trust in the peaceful solution of the difficulties and controversies which may grow out of differences in point of view or from clash of interests. An attempt in this direction has already and is now being made; its results, however, are almost negligible and, especially so, as far as they can be said to affect those major questions which divide seriously and serve to arouse nations one against the other. No merely human institution of today can be as successful in devising a set of international laws which will be in harmony with world conditions as the Middle Ages were in the possession of that true League of Nations, Christianity. It cannot be denied that in the Middle Ages this law was often violated; still it always existed as an ideal, according to which one might judge the acts of nations, and a beacon light calling those who had lost their way back to the safe road.

There exists an institution able to safeguard the sanctity of the law of nations. This institution is a part of every nation; at the same time it is above all nations. She enjoys, too, the highest authority, the fullness of the teaching power of the Apostles. Such an institution is the Church of Christ. She alone is adapted to do this great work, for she is not only divinely commissioned to lead mankind, but moreover, because of her very make-up and the constitution which she possesses, by reason of her age-old traditions and her great prestige, which has not been lessened but has been greatly increased since the close of the War, cannot but succeed in such a venture where others assuredly will fail. (Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922.)

Every true and lasting reform has ultimately sprung from the sanctity of men who were driven by the love of God and of men. Generous, ready to stand to attention to any call from God, yet confident in themselves because confident in their vocation, they grew to the size of beacons and reformers. On the other hand, any reformatory zeal, which instead of springing from personal purity, flashes out of passion, has produced unrest instead of light, destruction instead of construction, and more than once set up evils worse than those it was out to remedy. No doubt "the Spirit breatheth where he will" (John iii. 8): "of stones He is able to raise men to prepare the way to his designs" (Matt. iii. 9). He chooses the instruments of His will according to His own plans, not those of men. But the Founder of the Church, who breathed her into existence at Pentecost, cannot disown the foundations as He laid them. Whoever is moved by the spirit of God, spontaneously adopts both outwardly and inwardly, the true attitude toward the Church, this sacred fruit from the tree of the cross, this gift from the Spirit of God, bestowed on Pentecost day to an erratic world.

In your country, Venerable Brethren, voices are swelling into a chorus urging people to leave the Church, and among the leaders there is more than one whose official position is intended to create the impression that this infidelity to Christ the King constitutes a signal and meritorious act of loyalty to the modern State. Secret and open measures of intimidation, the threat of economic and civic disabilities, bear on the loyalty of certain classes of Catholic functionaries, a pressure which violates every human right and dignity. Our wholehearted paternal sympathy goes out to those who must pay so dearly for their loyalty to Christ and the Church; but directly the highest interests are at stake, with the alternative of spiritual loss, there is but one alternative left, that of heroism. If the oppressor offers one the Judas bargain of apostasy he can only, at the cost of every worldly sacrifice, answer with Our Lord: "Begone, Satan! For it is written: The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and Him only shalt thou serve" (Matt. iv. 10). And turning to the Church, he shall say: "Thou, my mother since my infancy, the solace of my life and advocate at my death, may my tongue cleave to my palate if, yielding to worldly promises or threats, I betray the vows of my baptism." As to those who imagine that they can reconcile exterior infidelity to one and the same Church, let them hear Our Lord's warning: -- "He that shall deny me before men shall be denied before the angels of God" (Luke xii. 9).(Pope Pius XI, Mit Brennender Sorge, March 17, 1937.)

It gives Us, Venerable Brethren, an inward strength, a heavenly joy, for which We daily render to God Our deep and humble thanks, to see in every region of the Catholic world evident signs of a spirit which boldly faces the gigantic tasks of our age, which with generous decision is intent on uniting in fruitful harmony the first and essential duty of individual sanctification, and apostolic activity for the spread of the Kingdom of God. From the movement of the Eucharistic Congresses furthered with loving care by Our predecessors and from the collaboration of the laity formed in Catholic Action towards a deep realization of their noble mission, flow forth fountains of grace and reserves of strength, which could hardly be sufficiently prized in the present time, when threats are more numerous, needs multiply and the conflict between Christianity and anti-Christianism grows intense.

At a moment when one is forced to note with sorrow the disproportion between the number of priests and the calls upon them, when one sees that even today the words of Our Savior apply: "The harvest indeed in great, but the laborers are few" (Saint Matthew ix. 37; Saint Luke x.2), the collaboration of the laity in the Apostolate of the Hierarchy, a collaboration indeed given by many and animated with ardent zeal and generous self-devotion, stands out as a precious aid to the work of priests and shows possibilities of development which justify the brightest hopes. The prayer of the Church to the Lord of the Harvest that he send workers into his vineyard (cf. Saint Matthew ix. 37; Saint Luke x.2) has been granted to a degree proportionate to the present needs, and in a manner which supplements and completes the powers, often obstructed and inadequate, of the priestly apostolate. Numbers of fervent men and women of youth obedient to the voice of the Supreme Pastor and to the directions of their bishops, consecrate themselves with the full ardor of their souls to the works of the apostolate in order to bring back to Christ the masses of peoples who have been separated from Him.

To them in this moment so critical for the Church and for mankind go out Our paternal greeting, Our deep felt gratitude, Our confident hope. These have truly placed their lives and their work beneath the standard of Christ the King; and they can say with the Psalmist: "I speak my words to the King" (Psalm xliv. 1). "Thy Kingdom come" is not simply the burning desire of their prayer; it is besides, the guide of their activity. (Pope Pius XII, Summi Pontificatus, October 10, 1939.)

This is, of course, just a partial listing of the constant teaching (God cannot contradict Himself, ladies and gentlemen; the Catholic Church can never be spotted by any taint of error or contradiction) of the Catholic Church on the absolute necessity of the civil state recognizing her as the true religion and of the Social Reign of Christ the King that such a recognition makes possible. Sure, as has been noted on this site most repeatedly, Holy Mother Church must make concessions to the actual realities of a given situation where she is favored with the protection of the law, doing so without ever conceding the nonexistent validity of the separation of Church and State and without ever once relenting in teaching her children what the correct doctrine is and exhorting them to plant the seeds for the restoration of the Catholic City. Pope Leo XIII made this point clear in Longiqua Oceani, January 6, 1895:

Yet, though all this is true, it would be very erroneous to draw the conclusion that in America is to be sought the type of the most desirable status of the Church, or that it would be universally lawful or expedient for State and Church to be, as in America, dissevered and divorced. The fact that Catholicity with you is in good condition, nay, is even enjoying a prosperous growth, is by all means to be attributed to the fecundity with which God has endowed His Church, in virtue of which unless men or circumstances interfere, she spontaneously expands and propagates herself; but she would bring forth more abundant fruits if, in addition to liberty, she enjoyed the favor of the laws and the patronage of the public authority. (Pope Leo XIII, Longiqua Oceani.)

A system of civil governance that fosters conditions that are inimical to man's last end is bound to degenerate over the course of time into a such a state of lawlessness that a "state religion" will be imposed by the brute force of the the civil state, namely, that of statism itself, the worship of the state and of its leaders as omniscient and omnipotent. The antidote to this is not found in any naturalistic philosophy, such as libertarianism or conservatism, but in Catholicism alone. There is no way--as in no way--to retard the evils caused by the separation of Church and State wrought by Protestantism and Judeo-Masonry and their actual, concrete expressions in the American and French Revolutions except by planting the seeds for the conversion of men and their nations to the Social Reign of Christ the King and Mary our Immaculate Queen.

This is the work to which each of us is called. We are called to look beyond the lies of office-seekers steeped in naturalism and are clueless about First and Last Things in order to build up Christendom in our homes, starting with their being Enthroned to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, pulsating with the rhythm provided by the liturgical life of the Church, especially (where this is possible) daily Mass in the Catholic catacombs where no concessions are made to conciliarism or its false shepherds who are opposed to the restoration of the Social Reign of Christ the King, and animated by fervent family prayer, especially by means of the daily family Rosary and frequent visits to Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in the Most Blessed Sacrament.

We are not called to be worldlings. We are not called to be grubby Calvinist materialists. We are not called to be successful careerists willing to compromise the Faith at any given moment in order to "get ahead." We are called to be faithful to Christ the King and to ever reliant upon Mary our Immaculate Queen, ever desirous of scaling the heights of sanctity, which is the sole foundation of order in the soul and hence of order within society itself.

Pope Pius XI, writing in Quas Primas, December 11, 1925, exhorted us to be soldiers in army of Christ the King:

Thus the empire of our Redeemer embraces all men. To use the words of Our immortal predecessor, Pope Leo XIII: "His empire includes not only Catholic nations, not only baptized persons who, though of right belonging to the Church, have been led astray by error, or have been cut off from her by schism, but also all those who are outside the Christian faith; so that truly the whole of mankind is subject to the power of Jesus Christ." Nor is there any difference in this matter between the individual and the family or the State; for all men, whether collectively or individually, are under the dominion of Christ. In him is the salvation of the individual, in him is the salvation of society. "Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given to men whereby we must be saved." He is the author of happiness and true prosperity for every man and for every nation. "For a nation is happy when its citizens are happy. What else is a nation but a number of men living in concord?" If, therefore, the rulers of nations wish to preserve their authority, to promote and increase the prosperity of their countries, they will not neglect the public duty of reverence and obedience to the rule of Christ. What We said at the beginning of Our Pontificate concerning the decline of public authority, and the lack of respect for the same, is equally true at the present day. "With God and Jesus Christ," we said, "excluded from political life, with authority derived not from God but from man, the very basis of that authority has been taken away, because the chief reason of the distinction between ruler and subject has been eliminated. The result is that human society is tottering to its fall, because it has no longer a secure and solid foundation."

When once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King, society will at last receive the great blessings of real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace and harmony. Our Lord's regal office invests the human authority of princes and rulers with a religious significance; it ennobles the citizen's duty of obedience. It is for this reason that St. Paul, while bidding wives revere Christ in their husbands, and slaves respect Christ in their masters, warns them to give obedience to them not as men, but as the vicegerents of Christ; for it is not meet that men redeemed by Christ should serve their fellow-men. "You are bought with a price; be not made the bond-slaves of men." If princes and magistrates duly elected are filled with the persuasion that they rule, not by their own right, but by the mandate and in the place of the Divine King, they will exercise their authority piously and wisely, and they will make laws and administer them, having in view the common good and also the human dignity of their subjects. The result will be a stable peace and tranquillity, for there will be no longer any cause of discontent. Men will see in their king or in their rulers men like themselves, perhaps unworthy or open to criticism, but they will not on that account refuse obedience if they see reflected in them the authority of Christ God and Man. Peace and harmony, too, will result; for with the spread and the universal extent of the kingdom of Christ men will become more and more conscious of the link that binds them together, and thus many conflicts will be either prevented entirely or at least their bitterness will be diminished.

If the kingdom of Christ, then, receives, as it should, all nations under its way, there seems no reason why we should despair of seeing that peace which the King of Peace came to bring on earth -- he who came to reconcile all things, who came not to be ministered unto but to minister, who, though Lord of all, gave himself to us as a model of humility, and with his principal law united the precept of charity; who said also: "My yoke is sweet and my burden light." Oh, what happiness would be Ours if all men, individuals, families, and nations, would but let themselves be governed by Christ! "Then at length," to use the words addressed by our predecessor, Pope Leo XIII, twenty-five years ago to the bishops of the Universal Church, "then at length will many evils be cured; then will the law regain its former authority; peace with all its blessings be restored. Men will sheathe their swords and lay down their arms when all freely acknowledge and obey the authority of Christ, and every tongue confesses that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father". . . .

If We ordain that the whole Catholic world shall revere Christ as King, We shall minister to the need of the present day, and at the same time provide an excellent remedy for the plague which now infects society. We refer to the plague of anti-clericalism, its errors and impious activities. This evil spirit, as you are well aware, Venerable Brethren, has not come into being in one day; it has long lurked beneath the surface. The empire of Christ over all nations was rejected. The right which the Church has from Christ himself, to teach mankind, to make laws, to govern peoples in all that pertains to their eternal salvation, that right was denied. Then gradually the religion of Christ came to be likened to false religions and to be placed ignominiously on the same level with them. It was then put under the power of the state and tolerated more or less at the whim of princes and rulers. Some men went even further, and wished to set up in the place of God's religion a natural religion consisting in some instinctive affection of the heart. There were even some nations who thought they could dispense with God, and that their religion should consist in impiety and the neglect of God. The rebellion of individuals and states against the authority of Christ has produced deplorable consequences. We lamented these in the Encyclical Ubi arcano; we lament them today: the seeds of discord sown far and wide; those bitter enmities and rivalries between nations, which still hinder so much the cause of peace; that insatiable greed which is so often hidden under a pretense of public spirit and patriotism, and gives rise to so many private quarrels; a blind and immoderate selfishness, making men seek nothing but their own comfort and advantage, and measure everything by these; no peace in the home, because men have forgotten or neglect their duty; the unity and stability of the family undermined; society in a word, shaken to its foundations and on the way to ruin. We firmly hope, however, that the feast of the Kingship of Christ, which in future will be yearly observed, may hasten the return of society to our loving Savior. It would be the duty of Catholics to do all they can to bring about this happy result. Many of these, however, have neither the station in society nor the authority which should belong to those who bear the torch of truth. This state of things may perhaps be attributed to a certain slowness and timidity in good people, who are reluctant to engage in conflict or oppose but a weak resistance; thus the enemies of the Church become bolder in their attacks. But if the faithful were generally to understand that it behooves them ever to fight courageously under the banner of Christ their King, then, fired with apostolic zeal, they would strive to win over to their Lord those hearts that are bitter and estranged from him, and would valiantly defend his rights.

Moreover, the annual and universal celebration of the feast of the Kingship of Christ will draw attention to the evils which anticlericalism has brought upon society in drawing men away from Christ, and will also do much to remedy them. While nations insult the beloved name of our Redeemer by suppressing all mention of it in their conferences and parliaments, we must all the more loudly proclaim his kingly dignity and power, all the more universally affirm his rights.

We should consider our privilege to run the risk of whatever calumnies may come our way for being steadfast in behalf of the cause of Christ the King and Mary our Immaculate Queen, offering to the Most Sacred Heart of Our King all of our sufferings and humiliations for reminding everyone, including the apostates in the counterfeit church of conciliarism who believe are the latter-day apostles of the heresy of Americanism, that He must rule over men and nations, making this offering to Him through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of His Most Blessed Mother.

The final victory belongs to the Immaculate Heart of Mary? Tomorrow is the First Friday of February and the day after is the First Saturday of the new month, which is Candlemas this year, the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary. On the cusp of yet another Lent, another journey into the desert to do penance for our sins and those of the whole world, isn't it time to retreat from the silliness of partisan politics, which goes around and around in circles and debates centering around nothing drone on endlessly, and to immerse ourselves in the things of the Faith, learning more about the authentic Social Teaching of the Catholic Church so that we can embrace it fully, love it unconditionally, and to be willing to die rather than to compromise on even one single point of it, recognizing that it comes from the Divine Redeemer Himself and that to deny His Social Teaching to deny Him.

Praying for the day that there will be a Catholic States of America, let us ask Our Lady of Guadalupe to help us exclaim with all of our hearts at all times: